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For the record, I believ they found a real effect, it just has nothing to do with nuclear reactions.

Shanahan has formed a belief considering only the evidence that he thinks supports it, not all the evidence. Shanahan has been ineffective because he is attacking the work of experts in their fields of expertise, and he has not inspired experimental work to confirm his ideas. Some of his ideas have, in fact, been tested. Nice try, no cigar.

you're not supposed to publish unless you're certain what you report is easily replicated by those 'skilled in the art', especially 'publication by the press'.

Again, this is part of the standard pseudoskeptical cant about F&P. Original reports are commonly published. They held a press conference, but their paper had already been accepted. They did not, in fact, violate scientific traditions, though they certainly made mistakes. "Easy replication" is not a requirement for science. Some replication is very, very difficult, even impossible. People make up rules in order to attack others for violating the rules they invent.

this contradicts his theory. His theory suggests that uncontrolled conditions in the material cause an unexpected heat artifact, what is generally accepted is that uncontrolled conditions in the material cause -- rarely! -- a heat anomaly. So Shanahan is not far from the LENR mainstream, in that respect. Except that his theory has, in fact, failed to match experimental results, and practically nobody is listening to him.

F&P drew down the ire of the scientific world because they claimed to have found a way to "infinite energy",

I don't recall them claiming that. But if they did, why would this arouse "ire." We don't sanely get angry if someone says something stupid, unless it actually threatens us in some way. The threat was? Then, once emotions are aroused, the mind will generate endless rationalizations for them.

100 labs worldwide did not find any evidence of inexplicable heat or reaction at the time would have been different.

THH changed his approach later. This reveals, again, a lack of familiarity with the evidence. Half of the 2004 DoE panel concluded in 2004 that the evidence for anomalous heat was "conclusive." That conflicts radically with "did not find any evidence."

The assumption that had there been any evidence, "reaction at the time" would have been different is obviously false. There was evidence and there was rejection of evidence, commonly without considering balance, and there were moving goalposts.

Classic ignorant pseudoskeptical comment, assuming something totally and obviously false, to troll the offensive. Off the top of my head, Miley, Takahashi, but there are many others. Further, the phenomenon discovered was seen in an electrochemical environment, hence it was found and early comfirmations (but not all) were by electrochemists.

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My opinion is that new basic physics will not be necessary. Nothing that is actually well-known will be overturned. Rather, there was, in 1989, a general lack of imagination. It was not universal, many physicists realized that there might be unexplored possibilities. Most ideas fell away, because they did not match the experimental evidence. Some approaches remain on the table.

What is most exciting, recently, is that a previously unrecognized phase of palladium deuteride was discovered and announced in 1993, by Fukai, in which there are "Super Abundant Vacancies" (SAV). Some think that this material could be the Nuclear Active Environment, accidentally formed on the surface of Fleischmann-Pons cathodes. If this is the NAE, it may be much easier than has been thought to create working material (because it is known how to reliably create the SAV phase, and it is apparently stable). I expect to see results from experimental work with this within a year or so.

Dennis Letts has been funded by Industrial Heat, and is working as a consultant with them. Cold fusion in general, my opinion, is funded well enough for progress to be made. This remains a very difficult field, but there are new understandings appearing that may accelerate progress. Confident predictions have been wrong many times, though. News and analysis regarding cold fusion, and collections of sources, may be found on coldfusioncommunity.net.

the first work to fund would be more accurate measurement of the heat/helium ratio, perhaps following McKubre or Apicella et al.24

I had been promoting confirmation of heat/helium as Plan B for the transformation of public opinion and especially scientific opinion, for some years before writing this reivew. As it happened, in late 2014, a working group founded by Robert Duncan at Texas Tech University was funded with a total of $12 million to do this work (and a little other work with "exploding wires" a technique for testing materials for possible LENR activity.) As this is written, that work is still in process.

This is pure science,not pie-in-the-sky "free energy" research. Are anomalous heat and de njovo helium correlated? That's a basic question, answered by Miles and reported by many with, generally, fewer repetitions of experiments. So far, measurement with increased precision has narrowed the ratio, a strong sign of a real effect.

more like 60%. This assumes no major escape of helium and no major escape of radiation or major creation of other products. Low levels of radiation and other products are often reported, but not at levels approaching what is seen with helium.

A Wikiversity bureaucrat, in 2017, decided to prohibit and remove all alleged "fringe science" content, radically departing from core Wikiversity traditions, and specifically went after some of the content I and many others had created.

(Wikiversity had always required neutral content, and substantial effort had been put into insuring neutrality. This was actually a personal attack, because a great deal of fringe content was ignored. But once a bureaucrat, it's a lifetime appointment, usually. Local protests, from administrators, were ignored, and the administrators threatened with removal.

However, this motivated establishing a dedicated wiki,l which creates many more possibilities with less hassle.

I was able to rescue most or all of the deleted content, with the help of administrators and Wikiversity data dumps.

The page cited here can be found on the CFC wiki. It is old, has not been maintained for some time. Most current activity is on the CFC blog,in an extensive hierarchy of pages, and it is planned to integrate this with the wiki.

Some references not otherwise freely available are to papers, published in mainstream journals, in the ‘Britz collection’, a bibliography with reviews, at http://www.dieterbritz.dk/fusweb/papers.

This was unclear. What was available at that time was the bibliography, and the actual collection was sometimes provided on DVD. The collection is now hosted on a googledrive. Request access with a comment on coldfusioncommunity.net/Britz. If you request the comment to be private, it will be read and possibly actioned, but then trashed. It will not be published unless you already have an approved comment (which makes publication automatic), You could instead request an email contact.

I will be
checking to see what you and others have
to say about the presentation.

It's predictable from prior demonstrations. I'm not going to watch and will not be commenting on the demo, unless others not only comment, but point to something worth watching. In almost a decade, nothing has been worth watching. Rossi sometimes says things that people would do well to accept: in mercato veritas is one of them. But who is listening to the market? Instead, Rossifans listen to RossiSays, attempting to extract truth from a pile of bullshit. From history, they will continue this long after Rossi is gone, looking for the hidden secrets. This has been going on, in one form or other, for thousands of years.

Actually, it is likely that LENR produces gammas, this is one of the two major branches of theory (i.e., nuclear emissions -- gammas -- or phonons, which is a very long shot, but maybe. However, the gammas produced are not hot enough to be readily detectred, and it appears that they are almost entirely absorbed in the materials and apparatus. Hence they show up as heat. "Gamma rays" and "X-rays" are the same objects, photons, but gammas are so-called when generated by nuclei, and X-rays when generated by electronic transitions. Jed would surely realize that there are an overwhelming number of "X-ray" reports from LENR.

The purpose of ITER is not to generate electrical power, the system has too much overhead.

It is to demonstrate and test power generation, and specifically thermal power.

Accepting his figures, with 300 MW of input, the reactor will generate 536 MW of heat. That is not enough for commercial power generation, and nobody has claimed that it is. There is no "loss" of energy, however.

Rather, there will still be heat. If the heat could be sold (sometimes it can), then the system might actually break even. For a net input of 86 MW, it would generate 322 "extra" MW of low-grade heat (great for heating applications). (This would be elevated temperature in a coolant, perhaps water, perhaps steam could be piped to customers.)

The 50 MW -> 500 MW refers to the actual power input to the plasma, of course, which then releases ~500 MW of heat. I have not seen figures for other operating power, I think Krivit is using peak power instead of operating power. It will take considerable peak power to bring the superconducting magnets up to full field strength, but far less power to maintain them.

True break-even is complicated. An overall analysis would need to be based on energy, not power. In analyzing JET, Krivit included in power consumption the very high power needed to maintain the magnetic field, using ordinary electromagets. Magnetic fields essentially store power, it is not actually "consumed," but ordinary electromagnets generate heat from the current flow, which then loses efficiency. Superconducting magnets were always planned to replace the ordinary magnets. They require cooling, but how much cooling depends on insulation and how much the reactor itself will heat them. Krivit is just looking for statements he can call wrong and deceptive. He's been doing this for years.

ITER isn't planned to be a commercial reactor, it is an experiment, explicitly.

Krivit makes his imagination into a story, an excuse to present his warped interpretations over and over. Nothing happened here, but Krivit, Krivit, Krivit.

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Well, the probability rises. This is Occam's Razor. Better to back up and look again. The complexity is not a proof, just an "indicator," as said. Some of us desperately want explanations, it's a juvenile reaction (i.e., normal for children). A more successful approach continues to observe, and sometimes to test (i.e., the scientific method). With more data, the pattern recognition engine gets more powerful. Trying to rush the cerebral cortex because of an amygdala hijack weakens the former, which will create something to justify the basic fears and desires of the amygdala. Often it stokes them.

What is "wrong"? A direction is just a direction. The evolutionary cause for these phenomena is obvious. It is not the "wrong direction:" If I see something on the ground that looks like a quarter, am I "wrong" to reach down and check it if it turns out to not be a quarter?
We follow the pattern recognition information, and more often than not, it leads us somewhere useful. But there are obvious pitfalls.

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you have a tendency to suggest errors that a child might make, as if nobody but you understands the scientific method.

People do make astonishingly obvious errors. Pointing them out is not a claim of being the only one who "understands." However, if nobody has pointed out the errors, he would be the "only one who pointed it out." But then Alan doesn't get to accuse him of hubris.

As far as we know successful E-Cat replicators were unable to measure anything beyond background.

"E-cat" replicators were not repllicating, because they had no clear protocol to replicate. What they found does not stand out clearly from possible artifact and file drawer effect. Not until they achieve clear reproducibility -- as shown by independent replication of their technique and results -- is this information particularly useful.
Until a clear and consistent correlation can be found between measurables, all this joins the vast pile of circumstantial evidence, which is inadequate to create progress.

If someone is making substantial gammas, unless they are quite low energy, it's not the FP Heat Effect. There are gammas everywhere, so the idea that they "shouldn't be there at ALL" is, at best, incautiously stated. There is an issue of level and other correlations and possible artifacts.

If moderate levels of radiation are shown, the next question will be "so what?" We already know that nuclear reactions can happen in condensed matter.That some ignorant people don't know does not change the fact of what the literature amply shows. The heat/helium correlation, multiply confirmed, shows the reality of that effect. There is another effect, relationship unknown, that generates tritium, at low levels. Convenient to detect, as Jed wrote. X-rays (so-called, they could be gammas, there really is no difference except presumed origin) have also been widely reported under some conditions.

Unless multiple effects can be correlated, or the process generating an effect can be narrowly characterized and reliably and reproducibly created, finding some gammas is not terribly interesting.

There is no rule, and Jed's speculation is just that, speculation. There is plenty of evidence that something different is happening in condensed matter, it's actually overwhelming, but the conversation became politically charged and confusing. Few bother to actually study the source papers, instead they prefer endless argument.

The basic problem is that fusion, in the FP experiment, generates a lot of energy, and releasing that energy without creating charged particles above 10 keV (the "Hagelstein limit") is not easy to understand. I'd say nobody understand it yet. Storms' theory is preposterous. Takahashi TSC theory is not, but Takahashi also has no successful explanation for how the hot fused nucleus discharges the energy without creating charged particles. Even if 8Be manages to cool by a "BOLEP," burst of low-energy photons before it fissions, there would still be about 45 keV with each helium nucleus left. Too high, probably.

The basic message to convey to physicists is that there are examples of LENR that are not explained by present theory, as far as anyone has been able to show.l Not that the "dogma" is wrong. After all, maybe it's not "fusion." Nobody has a problem with "fusion" with element zero (neutronium, or a neutron). It does not normally generate charged particles, but "activation gammas."

He assumes only eletrochemical recombination is allowed and that that is limited to 2%.

This is quite misleading. I don't see the "2% figure." Staker reports this: "Fleischmann and Miles [44] showed recombination is either zero or too small to be a source of heat. There was visual monitoring of cell electrolyte level and exit gasses." It may be correct that Staker does not measure exit gasses. HIs schematic shows an open bubbler, not a measuring one. He explicitly relies on the conclusions of many electrochemists, including the source he references. Shanahan's oft-repeated theory, ATER (At the Electrode Recombination), is a real effect, but it does not occur at significant levels with the higher electrolysis currents involved. Researchers do not reinvent the wheel, necessarily, proving again and again what is already well-known.
Fleischmann's response to Morrison's claim of recombination in Physics Letters A (1994). (from the lenr-canr copy, which I have not checked against the as-published paper)

This paper is a good example of how not to convince a skeptic. Science by assertion and assumption rarely does

Because Staker is using a similar design, he may reasonably assume that conditions are similar. Were his results extraordinary, it could be in order to review every detail, but they were rather ordinary excess heat measurements, and excess heat is properly considered as an established fact, by the preponderance of the evidence. Shanahan continuing to sputter for years does not shift this.

Shanahan has never engaged in a thorough and open discussion of his ideas, he bails when the going gets tough. The paper was not written to convince skeptics, and is not published to convince skeptics. Shanahan completely misses the point of the Staker paper, because to him it is all irrelevant, since Shanahan Is Right and everyone else is Wrong.

He is practicing science by assertion, what evidence does he cite? Does he point to a thorough discussion of the issue? No. If there is to be such, he is not about to create it, though he certainly could. One of the items on my agenda is to create such a thorough discussion, because Morrison also came up with this idea. I am working on that old debate on coldfusioncommunity.net, and participation is invited. Shanahan would be especially welcome. He has never accepted such invitations, but hope springs eternal.

I didn't go back and check if he used gamma or '1-gamma' in their equation.

100%, not 0. Gamma is the Faraday efficiency, how much of the charge transferred (current) is converted to the reaction product (i.e., the gasses). Recombination within the cell will reduce the efficiency, generating heat. If the assumption is made that the gases are released,but, in fact, they recombine within the cell, then there will be a source of heat in the cell. They generally assume 100% efficiency. The efficiency has been measured and it was only low when the current was very low, conditions then allowing substantial contact with the dissolved or circulating gasses and the electrodes such that recombination occurs. This is irrelevant with closed cells, where the gasses are recombined within the cell (so there is no allowance for energy escaping through the gases). Were recombination the source of "excess heat," as was claimed, and Shanahan repeats those claims, the excess heat would disappear when cells were closed. In open cells, substantial excess heat would appear with hydrogen as well as deuterium. These effects do not appear at levels adequate to explain anomalous heat. Not even close.

The paper was not designed or delivered to "convince a skeptic." The impact of the paper has mostly to do with his exploration of SAV theory, see my coverage of that paper and SAV and subpages. Shanahan tells the same story over and over. ATER was covered by Fleischmann and others many times. It happens. At a low rate, and mostly at currents well below those used in these experiments.

What technology? We are declaring that a "lab rat" is needed, a clear, reproducible experiment, that is actually confirmed and that works with substantial heat (I forget what figure McKubre has used. Maybe 10 watts). We don't have a "LENR technology." We have a pile of experimental results that collectively show that there is an "anomalous heat effect" and that it is nuclear in origin, as a matter of the preponderance of evidence. And we have many who announce this or that overblown claim, and there are some known frauds, and then lots of people with meaningless opinions.

They start off dreaming of the benefits cold fusion or LENR could bring

This is not how McKubre started, so this is not "Director"'s experience. It's his shallow, knee-jerk, ignorant judgment. McKubre is not involved in any effort to maintain secrecy, but, given the work he did, and does, he is privy to secrets, which he keeps, as do I when that happens. (Nobody in the field is seeing "extremely positive results." Not that I know of, and I strongly suspect that's true for McKubre as well.) If you are, yourself, interested in "changing our civilization," start by cleaning up how you think. That could make a huge difference.

Shanahan repeats his ideas without looking at the real evidence, and as usual, there are no specific references. Yes, electrochemists commonly assume no ATER, because they are experts and ATER impacts Faraday efficiency, and they know the conditions under which it is signifcant and the conditions under which it is not. Readiing the old papers, Fleischmann was addressing this criticism as far back as 1990 or so. I'll be documenting that.

Actually, it was not clearly an explosion. It melted down and part of the palladium was vaporized, according to the report. It was not reported at the time, and materials were not kept.
The biggest danger in current LENR work is exposure to nanoparticle metals.

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If we refuse to acknowledge the possibility that existing scientific institutions are not working as well as they might, we do something to reinforce it.

I agree completely, and underscore "not working as well as they might." Reputation is important in science, but there are no formal structures to correct information cascade errors, and this is not just in science, it's all through how society functions and fails to function as well as possible. There is a place for what might be called "social engineers," building on the sociology of science.

Meanwhile, this piece and your name have been used to promote another apparent exaggerated promotion, Deneum.

That photo was certainly impressive. What happened to that reactor assembly? There were two, actually, both installed in Rossi's warehouse in Doral, Florida, the older one as a backup for the newer. When Rossi v. Darden settled, Rossi got them back, and dismantled them "for research." Meanwhile, there were allegedly customers waiting for these reactors, it's been claimed. Rossi moved on to a totally new design, demonstrated it last year with a demonstration that actually showed almost nothing, and he still has many fans. That photo looks very, very impressive, and that's what it was designed for. It is quite apparent that it didn't work as claimed. Not even close. Deneum and Synthestech, another Russian company, still use Rossi as promotion, now raising money through Etherium "tokens," which can attract millions of dollars from naive investors.

‘We’ve had some success, and we’re expanding our work… and believe that we may be, at last, on the verge of a new paradigm shift.’

At this point, many assumed he was talking about Rossi. No, by that time he knew something was very, very off about Rossi's claims, IH had raised another $50 million, and it was not going into Rossi technology, and, in fact, this angered Rossi.

Darden’s attitude displays the cautious open-mindedness that has been lacking in reactions to the field for most of its history

Yes. I do think Darden was a bit incautious in some of his comments about Rossi, or taken to be about Rossi. Nevertheless, because of what his company did in court, no investor in Rossi in the future can claim that they could not have known he was deceptive.

If Rossi and Godes et al are actually on to something, then the field is going to be mainstream soon anyway.

Rossi may continue his deception/insanity until he dies. Godes (Brillouin) has shown no signs of being near a major breakthrough (but that's a real company with serious investment). the Japanese may be getting a little closer, but nothing that would lead, as yet, to mainstream recognition, as far as I can see. A scientific breakthough -- without any immediate commercial implications -- could happen at any time, there is research under way, and well funded.

an X Prize-like reward for the first reliable replication of the Fleischmann and Pons results

Key word: reliable. First of all, the FP approach is possibly inherently unreliable, extremely difficult to control, and "results" is not well defined. Some of their results were errors. But beyond that, it might take a billion dollars to accomplish this goal. That kind of money is not yet available. (Industrial Heat, as supported by Woodford, was prepared to put in over $200 million.)
What is needed is basic research, and an X-Prize won't encourage that.

there is very little cost to a false positive – to investing some time and money in an avenue that in the end turns out to go nowhere. But there may be a huge cost to a false negative.

Dr. Price has said that twice now, but what is the huge cost? I call it the "lost opportunity cost." Assign a probability to the possibility of major commercial application of LENR. I put this above 50%, given enough time. (If someone wants to assess this, it will take some study!). So, then, the technology could be worth a trillion dollars per year as a rough idea. So delay in completing the research is costing a trillion dollars per year of delay. By the way, conclusively showing that the evidence for LENR is artifact, error, a mistake, would also be valuable. That never happened. The early "negative replications" were mostly wrong-headed. For example, they were looking for neutrons. No neutrons, no fusion, right? So ... suppose there is no fusion. So what? If there is heat, what is it coming from? (But, in fact, the evidence is overwhelming that nuclear reactions are happening, under some conditions, in unexpected places.)

They were not engineers. They apparently did figure out a way to get at least statistical reliability, but then most of that work was never published, and the history of cold fusion is full of insanities like that. There is experimental work of high interest that has never been confirmed. And then there are supposed confirmations that were extremely weak. There are supposed "Rossi replicators" out there, working on hints, and then the file drawer effect is in full operation. Nobody has actually confirmed major claims like that. I've been quite excited by certain work, such as, at first, Parkhomov. But then I looked closely at the data. The claim fell apart when examined closely. But who does that? Very few.

What is called "cold fusion" is real, though we do not yet know what is happening, beyond a general most-likely conclusion that deuterium is being converted to helium, process unknown, but with the energy release as required by the laws of thermodynamics from such conversion. That does not translate to reality for any particular claimant to commercial success. In fact, the problem is so difficult that knowing the possibility of a nuclear reactor utilizing these effects adds almost nothing to a claim, all claims in this area are suspect and sensibly require "extraordinary evidence."

To anyone willing to listen, the community will say that they have amassed a great deal of evidence of excess heat, not explicable in chemical terms, and of various markers of nuclear processes

Yes. In the 2004 DoE review, with an 18-member panel of experts on supposedly related fields (cold fusion, is this chemistry or physics?), half agreed that the evidence for anomalous heat was "conclusive." That was, however, after far too brief a review. The reality of the field is complex, and I don't see that people understand it from reading a few papers. It takes a lot more, generally.

Outsiders might be surprised to learn how well-populated the trap actually is, in the case of cold fusion and LENR. The field never entirely went away, nor vanished from the laboratories of respected institutions.

I continue to be amazed by the quality of some of the research, and of some of the researchers, experienced and accomplished academics. There is also junk and even some junk from previously accomplished scientists who somehow lost it.It's all out there. And this is, quite simply, a social phenomenon. Simon's Undead Science points out that some of the condensed matter nuclear science research community's responses to rejection were themselves pathological.

It is sad that such people say that science should be driven by data and results, but at the same time refuse to look at the actual results.

"It" is sad. What is sad? People decide what to spend time on, it has always been this way. However, what is offensive -- not merely sad -- is when strong conclusions are drawn about others without examining evidence.

When this was written, there was not much public evidence about the Rossi claims, beyond what Rossi had himself had said, and what existed was flawed. Examples abound. There were many red flags, though.

they might like to recall the case of the great nuclear physicist Lord Rutherford

The argument, "such and such a famous scientist was wrong," is generally unconvincing to pseudoskeptics. Another example is Semmelweiss, who observed clear evidence, before Pasteur, that epidemics of peurpural fever, fatal for thousands of women, was attending physicians who autopsied cadavers and then examined the women. He was right, we now know, but he also was demented, which contributed to poor communication.

I.e., scientists are people. They do not fear that qua scientists, but simply as social animals. There is a real cost to becoming involved in LENR. It's not a joke. Yet there are people who have succeeded, who have made a career of it. And there are others who have made money, cheating investors. It's all happened.

LENR is highly unlikely, we cannot say that it is impossible. We know that the energy is in there, after all.

"Rossi is not cold fusion" was a quick, easy argument. Rossi actually did not generally claim cold fusion. Does it matter? What, after all, is cold fusion. Even to say that some thing is "unlikely," we need to know what the thing is. This is the real objection: If nuclear reactions at low temperature were possible (fusion or something else), surely we would have seen them! That argument does have legs, but nobody was looking for such reactions, until Pons and Fleischmann reported their results. And then hundreds of scientists around the world started looking. And many possible effects where found, so, then, there is the "file drawer effect." That's a real problem with research that is difficult to replicate. To really understand the situation takes more than thinking about possibilities. I have now at least scanned thousands of papers, and I'm beginning to get some serious understanding. It is very obvious why cold fusion jwas rejected, it was partly social pathology, but partly real experimental difficulties. And the real reasons can easily sound like excuses. And people judge based on irrelevancies. Scientists, last I looked, are people.

this would make a nonsense of the fuss over the failure to reproduce Fleischmann and Pons’ findings.

This was actually well-known at the time. Much of the alleged history of cold fusion never actually happened. But who studies this? Well, some sociologists of science do. I'm collecting documents so that research is made easier.

Huw, this is nonsense. I don't need a justification to ignore something, because thinks do not come obligations attached. The basic justification would be "I don't know anyone who is telling me cold fusion is real, so I have no reason to investigate it. I see randome unknown individuals on the internet promoting it, it seems, but it's not in Nature and I pay Nature to let me know what to pay attention to. (That's actually been written to me. And the fellow,a PhD physicist, is certainly justified to rely on a publisher like that. Doesn't mean it's "right." Pseudoskeptics, however, often mistake a heuristic, a device for allocating time and effort, for a proof of something.

Yes, if the person is willing to listen and consider. Much of what I'd say about this is really obvious, if one knows the history and the actual experimental claims (I mean the data, not the interpretation. The interpretation of so-called "cold fusion" experimental results has often been premature at best, and just plain wrong on occasion. Science begins with the observation of what actually happens, and reality doesn't come with name tags attached.

Ever since 1989, in fact, the whole subject has been largely off-limits in mainstream scientific circles.

In some, for sure. But not in all. Further, the likes of Lundin and Lidgran are generally naive about LENR and what has been claimed, and also about the realities of claimants like Rossi. There is nothing new about Rossi's claims except the scale and the showmanship, and there are now even better shows being put on. The real research is also going on, with little general notice. The real research is difficult. with many possible pitfalls. But it is being done, and some are doing it well. Others, not so well. Cold fusion at this point does not need theoreticians to propose Yet Another Theory, the common wisdom in the field is that it needs a "lab rat." Nobody has yet succeeded in designing and testing one that produces reliable results. Scientific knowledge can exist without reliability of an effect, through correlation, and there are correlations that have been found and confirmed widely, but these are not enough to break through the "rejection cascade," not yet. The knowledge is, however, becoming established. So it is likely a matter of time.

the Fleischmann and Pons experiment ‘was eventually debunked and since then the term cold fusion has become almost synonymous with scientific chicanery’

That report is common. The report of radiation was debunked, it was artifact. Later work showed radiation, but at very low levels. However, the basic finding, anomalous heat, was never "debunked," and there are no plausible allegations of fraud from them, but that idea became widespread anyway. And how an information cascade like that operates is indeed of high interest. How does a "scientific consensus" arise when there is no scientific process behind it?

It would be. Yes, there were two nominally 1 MW reactor sets in Florida. However, Mats Lewan, who has been cited here, allows Rossi to gloss over the elephant in that living room. If those reactors had been producing a MW, where did the heat go? There was expert testimony in Rossi v. Darden, that without a heat exchanger, the heat would have been fatal in that warehouse. (Rossi's expert agreed!) So Rossi, last minute -- previously he had claimed that it wasn't necessary and he gave a series of "explanations" why -- claimed to have constructed a heat exchanger, didn't keep the receipts (for a huge pile of piping) and paid the workmen in cash, and dismantled it when the "test" was done, and it's not his fault that nobody noticed this massive and noisy construction. "Nyah, nyah, You can't prove I didn't"!!! But this was a civil trial and a jury would very obviously have ruled on the preponderance of the evidence, and I think there was enough evidence to show, further, in a criminal trial, that Rossi lied, under oath, and I think his lawyer -- I was there and saw it come down -- realized that he needed to end the farce, ASAP, and did, and did it in a way that a clueless commentator like Mats Lewan would believe that "Rossi won!" -- i.e., that he got what he wanted, his technology back. Which he already had and was free to exploit, without spending millions of dollars on legal fees, as he did to file and prosecute that lawsuit.

No, this was just one more Rossi lie. He wanted more money, not satisfied with $10 million, and probably believed that Industrial Heat, embarrassed, would settle quickly.

philosopher of science, and my brain has been finding it engrossing, too.

Me, too. I have been collecting all the relevant documents, and the world looks different to someone who has seen all this. Some aspects become clear. Yes it is possible that useful energy could be released, but possible doesn't pay the rent, unless someone buys the futures and you are selling. There is money going into LENR. Industrial Heat may not have much left of the $50 million, but there is more where that came from.

And the landscape is crawling with scammers. There are now at least two companies with ICOs based on LENR claims, with, very likely, little or nothing solid behind them but some results that, if they have been correctly interpreted, and maybe with years of effort, could eventually be turned into something useful.

Rossi is not even the only person claiming commercially relevant results from LENR. Another prominent example is Robert Godes, of the California-based Brillouin Energy.

I hope to visit Brillouin next month. They are for real, but do they have "commercially relevant" results? What does that mean? They are nowhere close to a product. They may have some anomalous heat, but it is actually unlikely that they understand the process. LENR has engaged some very bright minds for almost thirty years, and my opinion is that nobody understands it, and that this situation may continue for a long time.

‘experimental results by Rossi and co-workers and their E-Cat reactor provide the best experimental verification’ of the process they propose.

Then there is no verification. That was a test of a secret device, no details were available, so a theory of operation was massively speculative. Rossi was quite proud, at the time, that Industrial Heat had manufactured that device. Yet when they tested it, they also, at first, found substantial excess heat -- using the same defective method of estimating it. Then they realized that they were accidentally testing a dummy reactor, with no fuel. They called up Rossi and he came up from Florida and Darden and Rossi opened up the reactor. No fuel. Darden testified that Rossi exclaimed, "The Russians stole the fuel!" and stormed out. As if it mattered how it happened that this "heat-producing" reactor had no fuel in it. The Lugano team had failed to validate their method, relying solely on theoretical analysis and incorrect assumptions.And Rossi''s history is full of examples where he sort-of-fooled scientists, or seemed to have. Many, in fact, reserved judgment.

Another investor, the UK-based Woodford Funds, reports that it conducted ‘a rigorous due-diligence process that has taken two and half years’.)

"Due diligence" for what? We now know that Woodford representatives visited the 1 MW reactor (in Doral, Florida), and that they invested $50 million in Industrial Heat, and committed $150 million more if needed. Where did that money go? None of it went to Rossi, Industrial Heat was supporting many researchers. What Industrial Heat had actually done was to confirm that Rossi was deceptive and that his reactor could not possibly be working as claimed. Many, at the time, knowing that Industrial Heat had been working with Rossi, and that Woodford had invested, assumed that the investment was in Rossi and that this confirmed that Rossi claims were real. Nope. The opposite, it turned out.

Rossi was granted a US patent for one of his devices, previously refused on the grounds that insufficient evidence had been provided that the technique worked as claimed.

No that patent was not previously refused, a previous patent application was. The patent was granted for a water heater. It's meaningless. What "credible reports"? The company that owned that 1 MW reactor was not impressed, and refused to provide further payments to Rossi.

The second report, the "Lugano test," had no control, and used a seriously defective method of estimating heat production. The blunder was actually obvious to anyone who carefully read the report, and it was based on believing whatever they had been told by Rossi. And this has been carefully critiqued, and those "reputable scientists" have ignored that, stonewalling all serious questions. Much of this came out in the lawsuit. The jury is not out, they were actually dismissed. Rossi could not afford to have that trial continue, so he offered a settlement, a walk-away. Otherwise he was risking a perjury conviction. The case record is public and all the documents are on coldfusioncommunity.net. It's really an appalling case. But who has time to read a thousand documents?

While it is fair to say that the jury is still out, there has been a lot of good news for my hopes of a free dinner in the past couple of years.

In fact, there was a level of junk science out there, sloppy research, sometimes naive and sometimes just plain wrong, and those who knew what was going on were mostly under Non-Disclosure Agreements and, as well, the entire field of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions was generally allergic to criticism, researchers avoided criticizing each other. Mostly. There have been exceptions,. but those who are not familiar with the field, and especially if inclined to be skeptical -- which is normal --, will not see them unless they look, and it it is not easy to find the information. That's what I'm working on.

Yes. If one can get past the frothing at the mouth, this is basic physics. What might be impossible is much narrower, because catalysis is possible and there is a form that is well-known and accepted, which was called "cold fusion" before Cold Fusion. Muon-Catalyzed Fusion. Muons are very unlikely as an explanation of the Anomalous Heat Effect, but could there be some other kind of catalysis? Or something else unexpected? Obviously, the "unexpected" cannot be ruled out. But pseudoskeptics cheerfully proceed to believe that not only can it be ruled out, it was ruled out long ago, and "everyone knows." And that is called "scientific consensus." Really. It is. Gary Taubes knows a lot about this!

It was well-known that nuclear reactions at low initiation energy (read "temperature") were not impossible. A lot of people who should have known better mouthed inanities, given the opportunity. The "impossibility" argument, defective from the beginning, was a very poor argument against Rossi Reality. Possibility does not equal Reality.

The latter was popularised in 1989 by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, who claimed to have found evidence that such processes could take place in palladium loaded with deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen). A few other physicists, including the late Sergio Focardi at Bologna, claimed similar effects with nickel and ordinary hydrogen. But most were highly skeptical, and the field subsequently gained, as Wikipedia puts it, ‘a reputation as pathological science’.

With everyone using lousy language, on all sides. Fleischmann and Pons found anomalous heat and also believed they found radiation. The latter claim was defective. The anomalous heat, in hindsight, was not. The claim that it could not be confirmed was misleading. That is, "it," i.e., the heat. Evidence that the heat was from a nuclear process was either indirect, circumstantial, or confusing (tritium was found and confirmed in "similar" experiments), until 1991, when MIles reported the heat/helium correlation.

Fleischmann and Pons were real scientists, but got whacked upside the head by unexpected results and the entire affair was massively confused by the commercial possibilities, which led to secrecy and, indeed, visible caginess. It was a Perfect Storm.

If anything is clear about cold fusion, it would be that,whatever it is, is not "similar" to what happens in the Sun, which requires a plasma, and the Anomalous Heat Effect, as it is much more neutrally called, requires "condensed matter," impossible on the Sun. Hey, I used the word "impossible!"Probably impossible, unless the reactor is made of Unobtainium which can withstand the heat. I.e., with real materials, maybe it's possible, for a few minutes.
This conversation was a set-up, created by the way words were used in 1989, on all sides.

Is cold fusion truly impossible, or is it just that no respectable scientist can risk their reputation working on it?

In order to address that question, we must define "cold fusion"? Isn't that obvious? Yet this "detail" is often overlooked, and so people argue endlessly, talking past each other. By some definitions, "cold fusion" is probably impossible. ("Impossibility proof" is an oxymoron, that's well-known.) By others, it's possible, but that provides us no information about Dottore Rossi.

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for a quick and dirty estimate, lattice constant for Pd: is almost 4 angstroms or 4 x 10^-10 m. He meant "100 micrometers," not millimeters.And it's odd he picked the largest crater, 10 microns is more common. a million lattice constant cube would be 100 lattice constants on a side, or 4 x 10^-8 m or, to compare with crater size, 4 x 10^-5 microns. But in the FCC lattice there are four atoms per cell. So a million atom cube would be about 2.5 x 10^-5 microns. Yes, much smaller, but the reaction rate must be very low per atom, and these reactions must take place very rapidly, or else the temperature would not be much elevated.

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As Rossi says, no experiment will convince the critics, only the sale of commercial reactors. This because he will not disclose how it works.

Mr. Ashfield repeats an old Rossi deception. Rossi claimed to have a commercial product, to have sold it. More than once. Again and again, he has repeated "in mercato veritas." He engaged with the real market and it spit him out. What would convince skeptics would be devices that they can see working and can test. That means they are available. Whether or not they are being sold is a different matter. Rossi actually will not disclose if it works at all, i.e., by actual truth, as shown by working devices, not by chatter. He deprecates chatter, but that's all he does, plus tinker with tricks.

Rossi,who does know, says it is about the same as a conductor. ie close to zero.

In order to know if the device is producing power, one needs to know the input power, which is normally done by measuring input voltage and current. Those values provide a figure for resistance, but Rossi claimed the resistance was zero. He was applying high voltage to the device (in the demonstration, you could hear the zapping periodically.) If the resistance were zero, the input power would be huge for those intervals. It is brought out again because this whole thing is incredibly stupid. Keep saying stupid, people will keep pointing it out. That's normal human behavior.

Itt was possible to think that Rossi might have something back before the lawsuit revealed way too much. Yes, there was always cause for suspicion, but the situation now is that Rossi clearly makes highly deceptive claims, nothing from him can be trusted, and he seems to be able to influence those who spend time with him. Beware.
This has nothing to do with "how it works."

R.A. Oriani, Reproducible Evidence for the Generation of a Nuclear Reaction During Electrolysis,Proceedings of the 14thInternational Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science, Washington, DC, 2008

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why does the steam pressure just happen coincidentally to be exactly atmospheric,

It just happens to be atmospheric because the pressure gauge is pressure referred to atomospheric (i.e., "barg" instead of what the Penon report reads, "bar," and then the pressure gauge is not the one described in the test protocol -- absolute pressure was correct for the application, not gauge pressure -- but ... if the gauge fails, perhaps from being over the rated temperature, that's very likely to be the constant reading. And the removal of the gauge by Penon insured that it could not be checked. Penon, in fact, if in cahoots with Rossi, which appears possible, could then have switched gauges, creating a tested gauge that was working perfectly.... This is all Planet Rossi, absolutely refusing to allow genuine independent testing, and calling details like calibrations "stupid."

The natural consequence. Nobody with major money is ever going to trust Rossi again, unless they are compleat idiots who don't look caefully at history, thus beinig condemened to repeat it. There was sufficient unclarity about the Italian Petrol Dragon affair to allow a reasonable possibility that Rossi was right, it was the Mafia. IH is not the Mafia, only Sifferkoll appears to beleive that.

The constant temperature (if real) means either a very sophisticated control system or a system where water is at boiling point and hence temperature stabilised. Any excess power beyond that needed to raise the water temperature in liquid phase can cause a small amount of phase change, and will not affect this temperature.

Right. Basically, if the Plant output is mixed steam and water, it may then have a constant temperature, the boiling point of water at the pressure involved. This woudl also occur if the output is unmixed phase, I.e, steam over flowing water. This was all clear in studies of the early Rossi calorimetry, in 2011, so that this was not carefully examined by Penon is telling. The steam over water may have a higher temperature than water flowing below, depending on conditions. Temperature would depend on exact temperature sensor placement.

With the removal of evidence, spoliation was the immedate comment of a lawyer before the issue was raised by IH, it becomes impossible to determine the fact. What should have, in a proper test, been very simple, becomes very complicated.

The idea of "conservative" analysis depends on an a priori assessment of what is important and what is not. It is never a great idea to conceal data. Failing to record detailed flow -- which might, then, have shown the expected variations -- failure to check the pressure, to make sure that the pressure sensor was working, where a constant pressure reading was suspicious -- all this is a mess, the kind of mess Rossi has long created.

If there was dry steam, which is a Rossi claim, the steam was allegedly "superheated," then there would be temperature variation, absent what THH states, a "very sophisticated control system," and doing this in the face of changing reactor performance, variations in power dissipation on the "customer side," "very" is an understatement, and why would one care so much as to go to all that trouble. The customer did not require dry steam, some level of entrained water would not be a problem ... and the removed trap would have "cleaned" the steam. A bit of overtemperature in the steam if it was actually superheated, would not be a problem either.

Pressure meter failure from overtemperature operation seems quite possible. What did the recalibrations Penon ordered show? I have not reviewed the Penon deposition, and I don't think we have all of it. I'd assume Penon was asked.

because that proof is missing Rossi should somehow be given the benefit of the doubt.

Given the benefit for what purpose? This is not a criminal trial. However, many are interested only in the excess heat question. Because Rossi has shown that he lies, and because he has shown that he somehow induces scientists -- even established skeptics like Essen -- to make face-palm errors, nothing from Rossi or generated in a zone of high Rossi influence, can be trusted. It's "fake news." And the people who cling to fake news are people who already "know" what it appears to confirm.

If the Rossi Effect is real, Rossi will, I'd think, show someone his secrets, fully. If he cannot find anyone to trust, then the outcome is Natural Consequences. Paranoia strikes deep.

Rossi's health may be failing, there are signs in the depositions. I understand why people like Rossi. I feel some substantial sympathy for him, in spite of all that he has done (and in spite of his calling me a paid puppet of IH). If he has a real effect, and if he actually cares about those children with cancer, and about the rest of us and our future, I strongly hope he will make that disclosure, and take steps to insure that the transferred technology actually works. He always said, the proof is in the market, and he was right as to an ultimate proof. So if people want to support him, if they believe him or in him, then .... let them raise the funds and make it so. Nothing could stop them.

But we now see that Rossi had full opportunity to do this with IH, to make $100 million and then half the world market, which would be many, many billions, and he blew it, badly. Conclusions are obvious, though many details may remain obscure.

The evidence is strong, the data shows many signs of not being collected data, but filtered, averaged, and what was represented as independent collected was not, the evidence suggests single-source. Mostly Rossi and/or Fabiani.

It is not possible to "prove" that the data is not real, but this could be shown to a high probability. This could be difficult in court, but actually is not necessary for IH. The fact that it is all obscured by counter-defendant actions, spoliation of evidence, may be enough to show damages.

Those wishing to test the above statements could look at the Statement of Material Fact and see the factual basis for this version of events

While I have found what, at first glance, appear as weak statements in the IH Statement, they are not critical. These are, legally, for the most part, uncontested facts.

I think Rossi et al will have the opportunity to contest them, but consider this: winning at this point could be a Pyrrhic victory. They then get to go to trial where fact will be determined by the jury. That is, they might raise some doubt now, but then face trial expenses, for what outcome? And if they call the stated "facts" into question using perjured testimony, they will then increase the substantial risk of a perjury prosecution, not to mention increased legal costs for IH, which might then be awardable.

When I looked at the Complaint, before there was anything else, I noticed the lack of signatures on the Second Amendment. I thought this was mere sloppiness. Did Annesser not notice? I think I remember writing that, if he'd noticed, he could have suggested that Rossi supply his own signature for Leonardo, and ask Ampenergo to sign a copy, since I was assuming, at that point, that this was a mere oversight -- and signatures were not dated. However, I did not know, but Rossi knew, that Ampenergo had actually refused to sign, so the Second Amendment was obviously invalid. IH was obviously willing to negotiate over the delay, but Rossi was not about to deal with IH as equals, peers, actual partners. If Annesser didn't notice, failure of due diligance on his part, and I see a Motion for Sanctions in the future. His incompetence, on this theory, has cost the parties millions of dollars. And Ruth Silver might be on the hook as well, a truly unfortunate consequence, since I doubt that she meant any harm, she simply failed to adequately supervise her employee. Hey, Rossi was happy with him!

Technically, the customer is real and Johnson is legally responsible. However, what is not real is the alleged and insisted-upon independence of the customer. Rossi and Johnson, with Bass assistance, created the illusion of independence.

IH knew that Johnson was a lawyer and trusted that a lawyer would not mislead them like this. What was Johnson thinking? Perhaps he was thinking billions in profits, trusting Rossi himself. IH claims to have not noticed that Johnson was actually Rossi's lawyer until later.

People have claimed that they did not do due diligance, but they were not making a major new investment, merely allowing Rossi to do what he wanted. Johonson's defense was largely based on "they didn't lose anything," which, unfortuantely for Johnson, isn't quite the case. But it was not large, compared to the overall investment in the Rossi License and in associated research and testing, and the cost of attempting to keep Rossi happy in spite of his incipient paranoia.

And then there was Fabiani, who seems a pitiful character, reactive, frightened, with his friend Rossi throwing him under the bus, and not know what to do, he deleted all the data he had. I might expect to see that from some stupid teenager. Bottom line, he broke his contract and his own promises to IH (Murray had promised to pay him the balance on the contract if he turned over his data, promised to have the check ready when they would meet. Did Rossi encourage him to refuse? Did Rossi encourage Penon to refuse to answer the Murray questions in writing when they were formally presented in writing?

I wondered what Johson thought when RvD was filed. Did he think this was a Great Idea? I suspect not. Bass was clueless, and Fabiani was freaked out. Penon disappeared, etc.

using the existence of this secretive customer as an excuse to prevent IH checks, in a way that made validation a joke.

Yes. It's obvious. While Rossi at times seems to maintain the idea of JMP as independent, this is simply a demonstration of how Rossi creates an idea, then believes it. He had an idea of JMP as independent. He had an idea of working with Johnson Matthey, so he presented that as fact. He has done this kind of thing over and over.

What is really odd is that Mats Lewan seems blissfully unaware of all this. He is skeptical of the IH position, while trusting Rossi, and clearly is unaware fo the evidence or somehow interprets it away.

Many looking at this case don't realize that LENR, if real, could be a trillion dollar technology. Looking at a $100 million investment, say, and at 1%, this would make the investment worth an expected return of 100:1.

Their actual investment in the Rossi Effect was roughly $20 million (that was their initial stock offering). and to allow for costs of the lawsuit, $25 million. The risk of loss beyond that is very low, because the real operating company now, sole owner of IH, is IHHI, which isn't touchable, and the Rossi attempts to pierce the corporate veil, both with Cherokee and IH, were legally extremely shaky (as IH shows in the MSJ)

Filing Rossi v. Darden was a colossal error on Rossi's part, and I'm looking at the role of Annesser in this. Annesser apparently encouraged Rossi and Johnson to refuse the December visit to Doral, requested by IH. Apparently he encouraged Rossi to refuse to assign a patent in January or February, 2016.

A new lawyer, wet behind the ears, trying to play David against a Goliath. Most Davids end up mashed. If you are going to shoot the King, don't miss. I can imagine, now, a Rossi lawsuit against Silver Law Group for legal malpractice, after the smoke clears from Rossi v. Darden.

They knew it could not be the GPT (no Ampergno signature on 2nd Amendment, wrong unit tested).

Not only no signature, but deliberate refusal to sign, and Rossi knowledge of this. The Second Amendment was clearly invalid, a proposed document that failed, even though IH had signed off on it. The IH assurances that if the technology was shown to be real, they would pay anyway, were probably true, anyone who knows LENR would be likely to think so. Ampenergo obvious thought that. And with no 2nd Amendment, the IH initial argument that the time had passed for the obligatory payment was actually definitive. But the Judge allowed Discovery to possibly show that there was enough agreement for estoppel. My first reading of the Rossi MSJ appears to accept that Claim I was dead, but first readings can be deceptive. Where is the Wabbit? The smoking gun? Rossi was fishing for it in attempting to obtain attorney-client privileged material. We don't know what that was, specifically, but in several years of communications, some incautious statement, under a belief in privacy where one might say about any damn thing, might have arisen. It seems clear that not only did IH never assure Rossi that Doral was a GPT, IH and Rossi knew it was not, which is then why they allowed that abortion to continue.

Yes. I had speculated more or less along those lines. On Planet Rossi, expect to see the claim that IH is lying. They do not realize just how dangerous it is to lie under oath. I read Rossi's testimony and see few outright lies.

The picture of how IH thought about Doral is clear from IH mails from the time, including confidential memoranda to IH investors. If those were fake, but attested by IH, expect to see prison time, and all it would take is one investor to blow the whistle. Such as, say, Ampenergo, which was a collection of Rossi friends, past supporters, with a financial interest in a successful GPT or equivalent. And they are investors in IH, having converted a small part of their payout to stock.

to assess the evidence in the MSJ, note the legal principle that "testimony (i.e., sworn under penalty of perjury) is presumed true unless controverted. So if a witness said it under oath, it is presumed true, and only if there is contrary testimony that cannot be reconciled with it, will it be set aside -- i.e., it won't be used in an MSJ, though it might be used later in a jury trial, with the jury reconciling conflicts.

Thanks, THH. That is not finished yet, I'll remove the Working Draft from the top when it is. This will then be a core document in an analysis of the IH MSJ, which will then be a part of the overall case analysis. Because the Rossi MSJ is such a mess, I put it off, even though my first desire was to carefully consider all the Rossi arguments first. I don't know what the judge will do, faced with an MSJ with all the exhibit references wrong.

There won't be a decision on this for maybe two or three weeks after the back-and-forth on the MSJs is complete, so there is time.

For me, part of the fun is seeking to anticipate the judge's rulings. Even when I'm wrong, the process then creates a background where I'm likely to understand the rulings.

The only Wabbit Rossi came up with is the Heat Exchanger. Hidden, dismantled, and, so far, all evidence for it is Rossi Says. But he didn't Say when asked on JONP about the heat. So he lied on JONP. Oh, what a tangled web ....

Well, most of those who remain stuck on Planet Rossi were not skeptics to begin with. No examples come to mind. Rothwell was a vocal supporter of Rossi, though mostly privately. He was basing that on reports from people he trusted (some of whom are now known, all those early demonstrations, etc.) -- and this was maintained in spite of Rossi's refusal to allow him to visit because he wanted to bring his own instruments. He knew how suspicious that was, but chalked it up to Rossi's famous paranoia.

However, Rothwell also was the first I saw to point out -- again privately -- the elephant in the Lugano living room, the apparent color temperature of the device, radically inconsistent with the calculated temperature. That the Lugano team did not even consider this showed something very off. Now we know that the "team" was mostly absent, that Rossi was there all the time, not just at the beginning and end, and that whatever Levi said dominated the report. And what Levi said was probably Rossi Says.

If it could easily be distinguished from experimental error it would already have been settled scientifically as existing, or not existing, and IH would have no quest.

Single tests, unconfirmed, are generally inadequate to establish the reality of LENR, and the existence of extensive unreported testing leads to a reasonable possibility of the file-drawer effect, also called confirmation bias. However, there is some LENR research that is not like this, that is not dependent upon a single result (i.e., excess heat) but that also shows correlated nuclear product. It is this work that I identified as most probative on the issue, and apparently a major source of funding agreed, and, while the existing evidence is such as to lead to LENR reality as supported by preponderance, the history of LENR and a strongly established rejection cascade required new work, which will be scientifically beneficial in any case, being measurement with increased precision.

Rossi was a huge distraction from this, and LENR scientists were not prepared for a con artist -- or delusional maniac -- like Rossi. They tend to trust "scientific reports," and not to suspect deliberate deception. That is why the book is thrown at scientists who fake data. Parkhomov really screwed up with his improved plot.

The nature of LENR is something that is elusive, and looks like experimental error.

It is not always so, but this is so true of so much research that when it looks clearer, experienced LENR observers suspect a rat. Variability of the effect, unreliability, is, so far, a LENR characteristic. Pseudoskeptics point to this as some kind of evidence that the effects are not real. It is not, but it is certainly reason to be cautious.

Everyone's shit stinks. But I'm not seeing a lot of it. What I see in the Darden emails is cautious optimism, and that is exactly what LENR needs. Cautious optimism does not reject skepticism, rather it embraces it; it merely does not allow skepticism to ruin the creation of new possibilities. It is not denial, it does not assume that negative evidence is necessarily probative. It continues the conversation and exploration.

I am encouraged. IH is massively connected, now, with the LENR research world. They have shown a willingness to work with scientists and inventors far beyond the call of duty. If they abandon the field, it will be a loss, but it looks like that is not their intention. Woodford seems satisfied.

If I'm correct, there will soon be a major research accomplishment, on its way to being published, and I expect LENR funding to explode. IH will be well-placed to surf this.

So to those who think the case makes IH "look bad," something is "smelly," I think they will be crying all the way to the bank. They may not make profits from LENR, directly, and certainly not in the short term, though we might notice that Ampenergo probably did just fine. They were lucky that IH came along. They returned the favor, though I think they were sincere, they were following self-interest in refusing to accept the Second Amendment, even though they would make more money if a GPT succeeded.

We should realize that there may be much more evidence than what we have seen. If it was disclosed in Discovery, it may be used in the trial, if the matter comes to trial. The MSJ is just showing the evidence that IH believes reduces the case to matters of law. I'm not convinced on every point yet, but ... I have not finished documenting the IH MSJ and Statement.

That IH would win the counterclaims with summary judgment is a long shot. The Rossi suit, though, is probably dead meat. No 2nd Amendement allowing a later test, no basis for suit. One can see in the depositions that Rossi's lawyers are angling for a "why didn't you tell Rossi" what Rossi already knew, and obviously.

On the other hand they also know that Rossi's tests are rubbish and that Rossi lies. They must protect themselves from having to pay $89M for something that does not work but gives a spurious positive test result.

Or an unclear test result. I find it hilarious that Annesser or Chaiken (I'm not sure which) asked -- was it Smith, the IH expert witness? -- if he was trained in nuclear engineering, as if that would be relevant. This was all following and supporting Planet Rossi FUD, because being a nuclear engineer would convey some relevant education (since nuclear power plants generate heat and must then harness the heat), but not the critical education (steam technology, a small part of nuclear engineering with some kinds of reactors).

Perhaps. They were willing to risk $20 million of their own money -- Darden and Mazzarino and a few friends -- to find out. They found out. As far as was possible, they "crushed the test," which was their goal. With positive results, validated independently, they could raise whatever funding was needed, I'd assume billions of dollars would just be the beginning. But with negative results, the whole Rossi Effect could be set aside, and all the mishegas wasted on it, and research could focus on independently-corroborated or promising findings. We will, in other discussions, look at that.

They accomplished their mission, and the lawsuit is just cleanup, albeit a bit expensive. Environmental remediation is the Cherokee core business, and they are cleaning up the LENR environment.

It is normal on Planet Rossi. We have been seeing this since the filing of Rossi v. Darden. What was not realized was how much evidence IH had. Rossi was able to maintain the lawsuit against the IH Motion to Dismiss because he succeeded in confusing the issues enough that the Judge wanted to wait for Discovery to make a decision. Discovery is the most expensive aspect of litigation, I've seen that assessment. So there is a 7 hour deposition with three or more attorneys sitting there at $350 per hour, and there can be months of this.

When defending a legal case you will argue anything you can that might stick.

Within limits. One runs the risk of boring the judge and jury. However, an MSJ is not for a jury, and judges may well be interested in legal points. I was very skeptical of the "lack of signatures" argument, but I was assuming that Ampenergo had actually accepted the Second Amendment. Then I read the evidence. I had speculated that Ampenergo had probably signed a copy, but Rossi didn't have it. I also knew that, in theory, it was possible that Ampenergo had not signed, but, then, there was always estoppel.

Now we know that Ampenergo not only did not sign, deliberately, but Rossi knew it. Did Annesser know this? Only if Rossi told him. And Rossi may not have told him. If Annesser did know, we might see a Motion for Sanctions later.

I was puzzled at the lack of clear IH argument on the matter of no signatures on a setting of the GPT date. Now I know why. The whole Second Amendment was not valid, period, and clearly so. So the expiration of time was real. However, Rossi still had leverage, but instead of using it to negotiate with IH for an actual test, he used it to set up a phony, Rossi In Charge demonstration, lying to them about Johnson Matthey, etc.

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What you claim is false equivalence, without any argument or evidence to back it up.

Yes. Reviewing discussions. I see two Planet Rossi views
:

Rossi is a genius, savior of the world, and IH is a bunch of evil, blood-sucking venture capitalists -- said with lots of spit.

Rossi is a brilliant inventor but quirky, and lied, all for a good cause, of course, making the test happen. IH is lying too, so it's a draw on the moral front.

Then there are the comments about Dewey Weaver. On ECW and sometimes on LF, the opinion is expressed that nothing Dewey says can be relied on, because it's been proven that he lied. Yet this "proof" is never actually cited, the most I have seen is one possible error, of no major consequence. And many times I have checked out what Dewey Says, and it checked out. Many aspects of the lawsuit were first revealed by Dewey. Some aspects have yet to be confirmed.

Even rb0 is protected by the rule against doxxing. Best not to (openly) speculate.

One of the problems with LF is that rules are not clear, and for free and complete discussion, identities can matter. It's actually a difficult issue.

There used to be an accessible TOS. I couldn't find it, looking now. At one point, a mod asked the community for input on a civility policy, and then a policy was written that largely ignored the input. And that was then almost totally unenforced. Except when a mod wanted to ban someone, then the mod could look for an excuse, even though nearly everyone was violating the policy. Even though some moderators were violating the policy.

basically unconditional diagnostic like "you are idiot" may be considered as insult by most people.
If they are argumented, those diagnostics may be factual, or at least subject of a debate.
Anyway best is to avoid unconditional statements on people, even on class of people (not easy).

Sure, it's easy, Alain. Just shut yo mouth.

In practice, "idiot" is never "factual." It is simply common speech, and may or may not be unacceptable uncivil in context. I was first banned on LF because a troll wrote about my mention of a conference many years ago that I organized, and asked, "Why do I believe that drugs were involved?" That was grossly uncivil. I responded with the reason: "Because you are an idiot." "Asshole" might have been more accurate, or "Troll" would actually get closer to neutral analysis. So I was banned. The troll was not. This was taking posts out of context, ignoring context, it is a classic moderator error.

Jed has acknowledged visiting IH in North Carolina. Dewey, of course, is openly an investor and consultant for Industrial Heat. And I have actually talked with Dewey, once in person at ICCF-18, and on the phone. I have not been paid, and have not asked to be paid. My expenses have been covered, by others not connected with IH or APCO, though known in the field.

Some of the possible Rossi socks seem different to me, though repeating the same Planet Rossi arguments, wildly disconnected from fact. And then there is the possibility that a sock is then turned over to someone else by giving them the password. That happens. Whether it has happened here, I don't know, but it could explain some of what has been seen. Rossi definitely uses socks on JONP to ask questions that he wants to answer, or to make statements he wants to attribute to someone else. Someone has mentioned that this has been admitted. I have not noticed this, a reference to the document would be useful. Rossi was asked, in an interrogatory with obligatory answer under penalty of perjury, to disclose all alternate internet accounts, but whether or not the answers have been made public, I don't know.

He was more than annoying. He was a caustic, racist conspiracy theorist, attempted doxxer without relevance, and drove away Thomas Clarke. Others have picked up and repeated his wild claims, as if fact.

In the training, to move beyond being an asshole one must admit being an asshole.

The Playground was intended for "off-topic posts." That was quickly translated to "anything goes." Except spam, of course, everyone admits that spam should be nuked. Even spammers don't argue with that.

So the Forum ends up hosting libel. Way to go, guys. As to doxxing, that originally referred to providing real-life information for accounts intended to be anonymous, and anonymous accounts were not called "socks" unless there was more than one participating in some discussion (i.e, pretending independent support that was only "puppet theater.") . Detecting and banning true socks involved a level of invasion of privacy, but this was considered necessary. That is, by pretending to be more than one person, one abandoned the right of privacy. Mary Yugo did this long ago, and Rossi has done it frequently. Real names were generally still protected (on WMF wikis), unless one of the multiple accounts was real-name.

I allow doxxing on coldfusioncommunity, for now, until there is a community process to review administrative actions and decisions. The obvious may be mentioned. However, user IP information, visible to me as admin, will not be revealed except in one case: clearly abusive posting (such as impersonation, which has happened), not mere expression of unpopular opinion, will not be protected, because sharing that information will assist other admins on other sites to identify trolls. which may shift admin response. As well, a trolling target deserves to know more about who is attacking. Trolls will not be automatically banned, but encouraged to participate in genuine conversation; continued trolling behavior will be sanctioned, after clear and violated warning.

Because nobody is being actually banned, it is not necessary to dig deeper than IP into user agent string, which is visible to those with root server access, and which tends to identify the specific computer being used.

People should be aware, though, that anyone can get a subpoena for server records, with that identifying information. To avoid this could require using an open proxy, which then, on some sites, will be banned.Most abusive socks don't bother; however, the situation for socks gets tougher when real-life identities are revealed, i.e., doxxing may be needed to protect the community.

Behind the scenes, I was informed that the reason my ban became permanent was that I revealed the identify of a user. However, that identity was blatantly revealed by LF history, was obvious, and was obvious in that way because of the user's behavior, the hiding of identity was thoroughly clumsy, and remains so. The user himself doesn't seem to be bothered, and has never requested that I remove such information (which would be considered, and which request should be private, for obvious reasons.) Remember, I was a WMF administrator, very active, both as an admin and in reviewing admin behavior. I dealt with socks and doxxing, extensively.

There are some Rossi socks, it's quite apparent, and someone who points it out is not ipso facto anti-Rossi. Some who strongly dislike Rossi, though, may suspect a Rossi sock that isn't.This is not common or widespread.

Those who are regularly called anti-Rossi on this forum are not working for IH, beyond Dewey Weaver, who is openly an investor in and contractor for IH. Even less for APCO. While, in theory, anything is possible, as to a practical reality, it is quite implausible that IH and ACP and "Big Energy" would be spending money on this quite minor site. If were Wikipedia,maybe this could be looked at. Large corporations have been known to spend money for influence there..

This kind of "both sides are doing it" is hysterical nonsense. They are not equal, just as Jed Rothwell, when opinionated, is not equal to some random user. Real people with real reputations and long-term involvment are not equal to anonymous trolls or generators of drive-by snark.

You can follow Eric's link, which goes to a page very difficult to read, but you can also look at the docket page on coldfusioncommunity.net, -- or I could give the URL for the file itself, but it's very easy on that docket page to see what everything is and then load whatever page one wants.

but who knows the full ciircumstances? Sifferkoll wasn't there. On whom is he relying? That email was blatant, and appears to be part of an attempt to defraud IH by pretending that the test was a deliberate failure, don't worry about it was Rossi's message, also. But he was admitting a fraud against Hydro Fusion, creating a fake failure so that they would give up on their agreement with him, because it seems he imagined that IH wouldn't want him dealing with Hydro Fusion. But they actually didn't care, it was not their territory, their license was not exclusive and Hydro Fusion was an existing licensee. There was no real issue. Most likely: the test actually failed and Rossi was just trying to explain that away.

So how would this be resolved. Of course there is more than what the email said. But what? I've never seen anything from Sifferkoll on this point, and he is here, quite clearly, avoiding it. If he has confidential information, that he cannot reveal, he could state that. But remember, he was attacking Dewey Weaver.

Sifferkoll may be telling the truth. "From his perspective," it does not reflect on Rossi credibility. Then again, his perspective is coming from a narrow, dark place.

Old news. This has been covered long ago and sorted out in person. Don't worry about it.

Sorted out in person by whom? That Rossi email was written to IH, and I'm quite sure that IH noticed the implications. In the mail, Rossi acknowledges faking a (negative) test. But the story as told by Mats Lewan was very different. Rossi argued with the Hydro Fusion experts. Something was fake somewhere, but where?

Sifferkoll's answer is like the Wizard of Oz saying "don't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain."

Magnus was not to be one of those exceptions and I feel badly for him.

I think Dewey is sincere here. Magnus Holm is the major shareholder in Hdyro Fusion, Ltd. Company filings. The last news on the Hydro Fusion web site is more than a year old, glowing, happy over the Woodford investment, and the Huffington post: "They also reported that Rossi’s customer has “significantly lower utility bills” since using the industrial E-Cat. What we now know was that the "customer" was Rossi, not even bothering to wear a different hat. Axel Magnus Holm appears to have invested about GBP 750,000 in Hydro Fusion, which has assets far less than that, including a large value for "intangible assets." Like possibly a license. Rossi v. Darden was not good news for Hydro Fusion, far from it. Even if the technology had been real. It appears that Dewey knows something about what is happening with Holm. Fact? Rumor? It's not important enough to ask Dewey.

Loss of scientifc reputation. There is already a sign of a problem in the Rossi - Gullerstrom paper, it does not give his institutional affiliation. He may have asked for permission and it was refused. The problem is not actually with "Uppsala" as such, but with the Swedish scientists -- with Levi and Foschi -- who allowed their reputations to be abused by Rossi. The Lugano test paper was misleading, in addition to being very incorrect as to how temperature was measured, and lacking calibration that would have shown the problem.

Uppsala, Gullström are some hints on what is going on, but you already know that ...

Sifferkoll avoids the question about Hydro Fusion. Uppsala and Gullstrom, a PhD candidate there, are in trouble, long-term. At this point there is no clue that Sifferkoll has been reading the court documents, though by reading them with blinkers on, one might be able to cling to some shred of hope.

This is classic Sifferkoll. He assumes that whatever Dewey says is fantasty. Maybe. However, not too likely. It might be exaggerated, it might be overextended, but there is almost certainly something real that he was talking about. Sifferkoll is myopic.

I'll help out. Unfortunately, the CEO had to sell his car and has had some problems on the home front as a result of the financial difficulties associated with signing up with Rossi. The trail of destruction continues.

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Planet Rossi is a permanent monicker well beyond this forum despite Alan's best wishes and desires. I believe this latest epitode (combo episode and epitath) of his also highlights his lack of judgement, temperament and inability to function as a capable moderator for L.F.

It will be no surprise that Alan bans Dewey. (I have not actually rechecked the ban notice that I think was posted, and if Eric did it, that would be a very different matter. That is how to properly handle an insult of a moderator. Let another moderator handle it. But these people have no concept of recusal.

For Alan Smith, the obvious obvious ("Planet Rossi") is prohibited. Yet various insults against Dewey Weavere, Jed Rothwell, and others, are routinely tolerated. "Planet Rossi" simply means those who follow Rossi, who think like him or in support of him. It is not insulting in itself. But Smith is not sophisticated. He doesn't like it and some users don't like it (such as Peter Gluck) so ... he will ban Dewey.

Or the truth. Peter has been, for almost a year, condemning those who simply told the truth. He did this with Gamberale, because Gamberale exposed the error -- or fraud -- in Defkalion work, and Peter was a strong supporter of Defkalion. Peter has been calling honest reporting of experience and opinion "nasty."

if there has be destruction of emails, removal of pipes, (I am assuming even the pressure sensor outside the container, etc.) , doesn't that mean that according to the legal concept of 'adverse interpretation' Rossi will not be able to use any of the claimed ERV report regardless of its technical competence (or lack thereof).

It's possible. Back when Rossi v. Darden was young, an attorney sent me an email with one word: "spoliation." This was over Penon removing the instrumentation. The later removals by Rossi were as bad or worse. Fabiani may have completely screwed himself by deleting those files.

Dewey is not fighting the case. He is mostly an observer, but was deposed.

Hence "he" is not winning, but it's obvious that IH is, though "perfectly" would be a strange claim. Win some, lose some. Overall, IH appears to me likely to win completely as to the Rossi claims, and has a running chance of winning some or even all of the counterclaims. The first may happen with Summary Judgment, but I'm still studying the document. The second is less likely to win that way, may require a trial.

The images show no discernible heat differences between the neighboring facilities but we have not been able to get the necessary data certifications that would allow this to be admitted into court evidence.

This could be introduced as a story of what IH did once fraud was suspected. A witness for IH would testify that he or she reviewed IR images, and found nothing standing out. It's too late to assert an IR thermography expert, probably, but IR evidence has been used, if I'm correct, for cultivation of marijuana violations. This could not be introduced at all if it was not disclosed in discovery. However, it would be introduced as sworn testimony, possibly supported with exhibits.

No they cannot. That is an Admin function. BTW. I know you would love to be banned, but that is probably not a good idea right now. But call me a troll again and you will be.

On LF, apparently, "Moderator" doesn't see IP addresses. "Administrator" does. However, then, we have a moderator saying that if he is called a troll, the user will be banned, and we know that he means that he will do the banning. On Wikipedia, if an administrator (who cannot see IP information for registered accounts) would likely lose his admin privileges if he made that threat. A Wikipedia administrator threatened me with enforcement if I violated the ban that he had declared. I was fascinated, so I violated it (with a truly harmless edit in every other way). He blocked me.

He lost his tools over this. He had been very popular, but supporters scattered when he did that.

That, in itself, is not how I ended up banned on Wikipedia. Rather, that admin had friends, and they went for revenge, long-term, and Wikipedia is largely defenseless against significant factions ... and this faction had maybe two dozen active members, including several administrators.

Again, inviting Sifferkoll to continue with what might well be off-topic. I sympathize with Eric, but ... what does it take to guide a community? The whip? How about leadership that inspires them to do what will benefit all?

It is more or less the communist ideal, which broke down when they disrespected private property, which then violates basic instincts. Natural consequences: if you don't do something useful for others, society will not do something useful for you. However, this idea that we "have to work" is common and nonsense. We work if we choose to, unless someone is holding a gun to our head. And we have this amazing ability to enjoy work, so it's play. We choose to enjoy it.

If people wish to discuss this further, please take the discussion to the playground.

Moderators need take special care to avoid an appearance of bias. On Wikiversity, as an administrator, I wrote rules for handling emergencies, where the only moderator available and following a situation has a potential conflict of interest. That proposal, while it would have had overall support if taken fully to the community, was crushed by ... a high-level administrator who often acted in conflict of personal interest. Later events showed that the administrative corps did not want any restrictions on its own actions.Classic. In other fora, in fact, this was called the Lomax effect, because I'd documented and explained it. It is a variation on the Iron Law of Oligarchy. The Iron Law is so-called because it will always happen, but there are ways to harness it.

What I don't like is for the thread to be so jammed up with insults that I cannot even consider the carefully worded, polite posts.

At one point on LENR Forum, moderators would move irrelevant posts to another thread, or even delete them. The latter is not a great idea, unless the text is copied and made available to the author. But what happened is that moderators stopped doing this. Too much work, too many trolls and even regular participants who go way off-topic. There has been no coherent attention to this.

Basic moderation rule: do not clutter up discussions with moderator chat. Set aside another place for complaints and suggestions. Set up appeal procedures. Using regular forum discussions to warn users is poor practice. Rather, private message first. Then, unless the user requests privacy, private notice plus a public notice, in a place for that. Log bans, giving cause and appeal procedure. Set up an administrative mailing list to handle such issues. Ideally, that list is publically visible, if not publically writeable. (Public posts woujld be moderated, with clear rujles).

Maybe this forum is not a good place for people who cannot formulate a real argument. That we have allowed shitposting is just a measure of our inability to extract better behavior out of the median forum member.

How about the median moderator? If anyone wants to discuss how LF is being run, it can be done on coldfusioncommunity.net, and I have just opened up this annotation possibility. Anyone can do this, and it does not disrupt the flow of ordinary conversation on LF. On Wikiversity, I created refuges for the banned. A few used them, and that is still going on. I stopped working on that when I realized that the wiki structure remained unreliable, and what seemed safe was not necessarily so.

Structure and frfeedom are not in intrinsic conflict.We can have it all.

while you might love to see the server logs it ain't gonna happen unless you chainsaw your way in.

Problem is, he could, if relevance to Rossi v. Darden could be shown. Dewey could also make it relevant to a lawsuit by filing one, he's been libeled enough, and that would lead to a classic claim. "Planet Rossi" is a way of describing a quite obvious faction. It is not an insult in itself, unless being associated wtih Rossi is an insult, and those who are called "Planet Rossi" generally don't think so. Smith's suggestion is an attempt at thought control.

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Everybody cold be more
satisfied if, after 10 days of zero excess heat IH had smartly and honestly told arrivederci to their former ally.

We now have far more information, from the depositions, as to the sequence of events in the IH/Rossi relationship. At this point it appears that Rossi knew, in advance, that the GPT could not be performed without explicit approval, and Ampenergo was refusing to sign. So Rossi created a faux customer and a faux GPT, lying about it all then and continuing to mislead and misrepresent in his Complaint. Why didn't they tell the poor Andrea that it wasn't a GPT? Because they did tell him, just not in writing and not in the first parts of this faux test. Now Rossi is suddenly talking about slaving away in extremely hot, uncomfortable conditions, something that managed to escape notice before. Peter's confidence in Rossi has been betrayed, but Peter is blaming everyone else.

What is the point of being an IH-troll if there is nothing to troll about?

A huge pile of documents revealing actual fact or admissible testimony was dropped on the Court last week. There is a lot to read. I'm studying the documents, creating study tools. That takes time, but in the process, I keep finding more and more amazing facts. It's tempting to push each one. Mostly, I'm not. As people discover just how deeply and clearly Rossi lied, they write about it. Some might froth a little at the mouth....But Rossi created all this with his massive and extensive deceptions.

Back in 1990, after the F and P announcement, it seemed clear to me that a lot of the criticism they received came from other scientist that were envious of their discovery. Could some of this be going on here, Jed?

Rionrlty is not a Rossi sock, but has swallowed the Rossi Line, witih hook and sinker. He might as well be a troll, and has been banned. Rothwell is an expert on the Pons and Fleischmann history. He knows and I know what happened then, and it doesn't resemble what is going on with Rossi at all.

From the documents is evident that IH had obtained high COP in her own experiments, and that Darden had rose about 250M$ from investors.
They now don't want to pay simply creating an artifact opinion via this forum, There was even a bribery attempt by them.

This is what we'd expect from Rossi, these are claims he makes in court, presented here as fact. The Magistrate did not buy the "bribery" idea. The evidence doesn't support it. Uzi Shaya, if the sworn declaration is the truth, was a private investigator looking for information, not exactly an agent of Darden, but hired by Zalli.

Opinion on LENR Forum is going to have no effect on the lawsuit, and Rossi Says is not accepted there. Rossi has claimed that Darden raised large sums, but has been unable to document it, beyond the $20 million originally invested by Darden and friends, and then the $50 million invested by Woodofrd in a place where Rossi can't touch it, which must burn him no end.

The lawsuit is exposing many, many lies told by Rossi over the years. It's not in question any more. Rossi lied, the most obvious one was the fake customer, supposedly independent, which he actually totally controlled.

Darden raised $20 million from a close group of friends. That is all that was involved with Rossi, there is no sign that any significant money from Woodford went to Rossi activities. joshg is inventing $250 million, that is even more than Rossi -- without evidence -- claims. So the reality of the Rossi investment (about $20 million) is increased by joshg to more than ten times that.
APCO is not involved in LENR Forum discussions, there is zero evidence of that.

I remember reading that the investment was Darden's own money but I have never seen any evidence for that. Cherokee, parent of IH, is an investment fund. And certainly, Woo-Woodford used investor money to support IH and their share-holders complained aplenty. The complaints in their forums went mostly unanswered and when I asked how they vetted the claims, they refused to say. Idiots!

This is standard Mary Yugo. "She" pays no attention to the voluminous evidence being developed, but has strong opinions about it. Woodford money did not go to or support Rossi.

If IH had done what Mary would recommend, they would have accomplished nothing. Rossi would still be confusing many. As a result of IH's persistence, Planet Rossi has shrunk and almost disappeared. It's not over yet, as this is written, but the end is reasonably obvious.

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careless people with other people's money decide to invest in something they do not understand

IH (and Woodford) did extensive research before investing. Mary Yugo is a retured has-been, who has no understanding of what Industrial Heat actually did. Darden and Mazzarino, and a few others, first of all, invested their own money, not Fund money. Major Fund money only came in with Woodford, and that money did not go to Rossi, nor, in fact, to Industrial Heat, but to IH Holdings International, which Woodford has good access to, it being formed locally for them in the U.K.

They knew about Rossi's past, that is obvious from the Agreement. Mary Yugo has not bothered to become actually informed, but keeps repeating the same tired narrative

This is concern trolling. The poor investors lost money. But they actually gained something, and Mary Yugo has long been unable to understand what is outside the box "she" lives in. Financially, they are doing fine. The Magistrate just made a joke about it.

The days were to start from the time the GPT was agreed to and signed by both parties. That did not happen so there was never any 50 days into the test.

It appears that Ampenergo deliberately did not sign the Second Amendment allowing the GPT to be postponed, and Rossi knew this. Rossi, then, knew that the GPT was impossible unless IH created a side-agreement (they certainly could have done that). But Rossi wanted to force the issue, to create another of his "masterpieces."

if it had produced 10% excess with high confidence, they would have gladly paid.

Well, with high confidence, meaning high reliability and control, maybe. There are details to consider. $89 million is a lot for something not ready for commercialization, but under some conditions, yes, definitely. COP 1.1 should be possible to convert to self-sustain, i.e., infinite COP, with appropriate engineering. Cost would be a factor, though.

So you seem upset IH is gullible, and incompetent, but that is why Rossi chose them.

And when they hired a sophisticated engineer, being not quite so gullible and incompetent and maybe even the reverse, Rossi decided the engineer was a spy, and actually says that in his formal Answer to the countercomplaint. No Snakes or Spies allowed where Rossi is At Work.

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He was practically begging for it. Anonymous trolls have nothing to lose.

The biggest problem with bans as they exist on LF is that the user cannot edit or remove their own content. All log-in is disabled. The user cannot read their private Messages. hence there should be a preliminary step: "We are restricting your use of the Forum for for a period. However, as a courtesy, we are leaving your account unbanned. Do not use this account for anything other than to access content and to correct your own harmless errors or to delete your content. If this is violated, your account will be banned."

While a user might violate that -- true trolls are very likely to viiolate it -- then they are responsible for having been banned, having violated a clear warning. If they want to complain, they have places they can do it, many of them.

Rigid compared to what? I've been a moderator at newvortex for many years and nobody has been banned (In spite of Mary Yugo's claims). Nobody has been banned from coldfusioncommunity.net.

To be sure, it could become necessary, but for communities that depend on discussion, bans should reflect community consent. It's true that an owner has rights, but if the intention of the owner is to serve the community, the owner will consult the community and will be responsive.

I am not banned on E-Cat World, but am on moderation, even though rejections have been very, very rare. Moderation is a relatively harmless device. If I were to flood ECW with posts the owner dislikes, I'd expect to be banned, but Bob's story reflects an owner who may have been having a bad day...

LENR forum process is far from transparent. The process for choosing moderators and administrators is hidden. There are factions in the staff. Finding two moderators to agree on a ban would probably not be difficult. But does the staff represent the community of readers (no), or the community of those who contribute content (no). To whom are moderators and administrators responsible?

Legally, the owner, but what is the owner's position on all this? He isn't saying. He is not a major contributor, nor does he openly resolve disputes.

you seem awfully thin-skinned today. Maybe its a good idea to take a break?
Please consider that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

This is called "concern trolling." It's highly provocative. This is indeed, the "Playground." It's a bad idea, when it's moderated by the same people, and hosted by the same owner, found on the same site, with the same Unread Posts display and the same user set.

People who do nothing more than shitposting add no value and will not last long here.

Some have lasted a long time. More difficult are those who both contribute value and troll for outraged response. One of them is a moderator. Not once, ever, have other moderators restrained him. Behind the scenes, staff is badly divided, apparently. And nobody talks about it ... except I have been, on coldfusioncommunity.net and now with hypothes.is annotation, and others may join. These annotations are only seen by those who choose to see them.

Siffferkoll was a highly offensive troll, for a long time, and was not sanctioned. He created many of the false memes that keep circulating on Planet Rossi, with "research" that sees a stick and calls it a snake.

As I said, it's a judgment call. If you do not contribute clear value in the form of good arguments (pro or con), and you have a demonstrated history of attacking forum members, you are on thin ic

Eric is trying to bring some order. It's difficult in the absence of clear rules. Eric is pointing out an obvious consideration: someone who violates civility and who does not "forward the conversation," is useless to the forum community. Someone who violates civility and is activly contributing might get a pass. My opinion is that the "pass" would not mean that incivility is tolerated, but that the person is worth warning, with clear consequences that can be anticipated and with this being made reliable. When it is erratic, unreliable, and unevenly enforced, we have a certified mess.

Bob is incorrect. The parties may present parts of documents, that they consider relevant. The depositions, in particular, are enormous; a few of them are presented intact, the whole deposition, but mostly excerpts are presented. This can be cherry-picking, but in the process that ensues, the other side can supply the context if it matters. Redactions are a different matter. The ones I see are blacked out. That is not necessarily a court seal. If a document is sealed, it will not be readable for us, but only to those with court authorization. Bottom line, the court is only making decisions on the visibility of documents when requested. The normal process is that the parties decide what to include as exhibits.

A simple explanation for non-payment could be that Darden did not have the money at hand by the end of the test

There is apparently sworn testimony that Woodford committed an additional $150 million if needed. That "simple explanation" is simple-minded (as if investors like Darden have bundles of cash sitting around -- or are paralyzed. No, they raise money when it is needed. If the problem were cash on hand, IH could surely have negotiated for partial payment, and, in fact, there was a provision for that in the agreement, as I recall

That the Doral test was almost certainly not the GPT was obvious from the Complaint. Crucial evidence was missing, and has not appeared, only vague references to a test, not the explicit signed agreement required by the Second Amendment, and the Second Amendment was not signed by all parties, particularly not by Ampenergo, and evidence has appeared that this was deliberate. Ampenergo, Rossi's friends, did not want that Amendment, which is why Rossi could not have remedied the defect post-facto, but filed it as defective. The problem was obvious from the filing, I saw it and wrote about it. However, maybe IH had actually consented somewhere, which is why this was not resolved with the IH Motion to Dismiss. Now we know. There was no consent to a GPT, this is all Rossi Says.

This notion that opinions are somehow magically equal or that any notion you dream up is somehow valid because it is your opinion is new-age nonsense

Hey, I'm the New Age, my first teacher actually wrote a book, "This is the New Age, In Person," and Jed Rothwell is sometimes a beknighted curmudgeon. However, he is also an expert on all things LENR, world-class, even though he is "only" a writer and LENR librarian. Librarians learn a lot.

The real New Age isn't each and every stupid idea. It's humanity waking up.

Wyttenbach is consistently off-point. If it is the case that Bob actually is associated with IH, it would increase interest in his comments. From what I know about Bob, though, Wytttenbach is spreading FUD.

Classic for trolls: "Your comment is not worth replying to," thus demonstrating utter hypocrisy, since the troll has commented.

(Wyttenbach is actually a math PhD, which goes to show just how important degrees are.)

Dewey sure as heck insinuated it over and over, and may have even made the claim. And he is paid directly by IH.

Rionrlty may be sincere, but he is a consistent Planet Rossi troll. No evidence provided. Dewey Weaver is a consultant for IH, but also an investor, and we don't know if he is paid more than expenses, and, further, he is not paid to comment on blogs, there is no evidence for that, it is pure "insinuation." The idea that some are being paid to attack Rossi is a standard Planet Rossi trope, very commonlly asserted. It's claimed that I've been paid, and I certainly know that I have not. It's claimed that Jed Rothwell is paid, and he is a long-time philanthropist for LENR and his comments, while opinionated, are his opinions, he is nobody's puppet. Etc.

Classic here: the actual alleged comments are not linked. Rather an obviously hostile summary is presented. That is what trolls do.

There has been much speculation about the pipe size, for multiple reasons. Most of it has been prefaced wtih "if."

The Murray deposition is a very detailed document, though much of it is wrangling by the Rossi attorney, trying to catch Murrray in some error. A common tactic: ask Murray if it is possible that he could be wrong about this or that. Murray doesn't take the bait. Of course it is possible. Anyone can make a mistake, and someone who believes they could not possibly be mistaken is not a genuine expert. Murray just says, "Yes." But sticks to his testimony.

The DN40 reference mentioned by Wyttenbach probably comes from the infamous Exhibit 5, where it appears that Murray was repeating what Penon had told him, or simply made a mistake. However, the DN80 issue with the flow meter flange creates increased possibility for the meter to not be full of water. Reading the Murray deposition I find comments with enormous implications for the lawsuit. No wonder Rossi is trying to get it tossed out! However, Murray may have been entered as an "expert" -- and comes across as one -- but he was also the IH engineer that Rossi refused entrance to, the first sign of a major rift in the IH/Rossi relationship, in July, 2015. If the court decides not to allow Murray as "expert," his testimony would still be admissible as the engineer for IH. And IH would likely obtain another expert, or simply rely on Smith. I find Murray very, very believable. His caution and readiness to admit possible error increase his apparent probity.